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Monday, July 21, 2014

5th Edition Wild Magic Arcane Tradition Draft!

Random crazy eyes wizard from
page 126 of the 2e Tome of Magic

WILD MAGES

I love Wild Mages. I love jumping the gun on things I don't understand. I'm trying to make a 5e style Arcane Tradition for the Wild Mage. This is a terrible idea. My one 5e character is level 1! The PHB isn't even out yet! What am I doing!?!?!

I'm making a Wild Mage dammit!

My first D&D character ever was a Wild Mage. I still play her, much to the consternation of Reynaldo Mandarin and Zach Marx Weber, and the delight of Kasper Blombdell. I've played them in 3.5 edition, when they were a prestige class, and 4th edition, where they were really some weird variation on the Sorcerer. I think they're cool, and stuff. So, while I imagine Wizards will probably come out with their own version, I wanted to jump the gun and also see just how flexible 5th could be.

This is a rough draft because I like putting out rough drafts on the interwebs and going "hey interwebs, fix this" because the interwebs is actually pretty smart about these things.

BEFORE YOU GO OFF BEING "HELPFUL" HOWEVER, PLEASE, please, Please familiarize yourself with AT LEAST the 2nd edition Wild Mage rules. Purple Worm is helpful! Also, please have read the (freeee) 5th edition rules, specifically the bit about Wizards and Arcane Traditions

Things I stole from 3.5 Edition: an attempt to use a die roll to determine level flux, instead of a table
Things I stole from 4th Edition: Wild Soul, Chaos Burst which is really Chaos Action but kind of merged into a different thingy

The core concepts of the Wild Mage since 2nd edition have been:
> Their spells do random things, are random in nature, and fluctuate in power
> Their spells have the potential to blow up in their faces and cause horrible things to happen

Keep that in mind when making suggestions. While I do want this Wild Mage to be balanced, randomness IS a central theme. The idea is that while the Wild Mage should have the potential to be more powerful than other wizards, this power should come with all kinds of weird headaches, disadvantages, and potential for terribleness.

Questions I have: Do the Arcane Tradition abilities make sense? Are they too powerful for their level? Not powerful enough for their level? How do I make Arcane Flux both better balanced (atm, you basically have a 1/4 chance of casting the spell at its level) and easier to use (This may be worse than the original table, idk). Is rolling for Wild Surge every time too much work? How are the few spells I've written up so far? Which Wild Magic spells that I haven't fully written out look like they have potential, and which ones should I just chuck out of a window? Any suggestions for other Wild Magic spells (I feel like there should be more Wild Magic than the average Cleric gets from a domain, but less than you get from the average school of magic)?

Here's the draft so far.

Arcane Tradition: Wild Magic

Wild Magic is a dangerous and strange
tradition of magic. Most Wild Mages are mavericks, shunned by their
peers for their unpredictable nature. Wild Mages study the magic of
pure chaos and randomness.

Said Tradition grants a few more
features than most Traditions, but at considerable cost.

Wild Magic

Starting at level 2, you access to the
Wild Magic school. Other wizards cannot use these spells: they
require considerable study to master.

Arcane Flux

Starting at 2nd level, all
of your spell slots are treated as being 5 levels lower than they
actually are for the purposes of effects that vary by level (such as
the damage of a Magic Missile spell). Instead, when you cast the
spell, roll 2d4 and add the total to the effective slot level. AFTER
adding the result of the 2d4, the level of the slot cannot be less
than 1.

For example, if you are a 3rd
level wizard and you choose to cast Magic Missile using a 1st
level slot, the spell level is treated as -4. The spell can thus
fluctuate between level 1 and level 4 slot (with the chances of being
level 1 about 60%).

This flux is ONLY used for determining
effects that vary by level. Spell slots otherwise behave normally
(eg, you use spells in the slot appropriate for your level).

This ability does not effect cantrips,
and it cannot raise a spell above 9th level.

Wild Surge

Starting at 2nd level, roll
a d20 any time you cast a spell (if the spell requires a to-hit roll,
just use that roll). If you roll a 1, you trigger a Wild Surge. Roll
on a Wild Surge table to determine the result.

Level Flux does not apply on a
triggered Wild Surge; if the spell functions at all, it functions at
the level you cast it at.

Student of Chaos

Starting at 6th level,
whenever you encounter any random effect, you have advantage on the
roll to determine what that effect is. For example, if you are
targeted by Prismatic Spray, you can roll twice to determine which
color you are hit by. If you use a Rod of Wonder, you roll twice to determine its effects.

This ability does not apply to your own
spells and abilities, except where otherwise noted.

Wild
Soul

Starting
at 10th
level, whenever you take a short or long rest, roll 1d10 to determine
a damage type:

d10

Damage Type

1

Acid

2

Cold

3

Fire

4

Force

5

Lightning

6

Necrotic

7

Poison

8

Psychic

9

Radiant

10

Thunder

You
gain resistance to that type of damage until your next short or long
rest. Any spells you cast that deal that damage type deal 2x their normal damage until your next short or long rest. You deal half damage with that damage type to creatures that have immunity to that type.

Chaos Burst

At 14th
level, you can imbue spells you cast with a beneficial effect by
reaching into the power of raw Chaos. Roll 1d8.

Until your next short rest, each ally within 25 feet of you
gains resistance to the damage type you resist with your Wild
Soul.

5

You teleport an ally and an enemy within 50 feet of you,
swapping their positions.

6

Gain a bonus to AC equal to your Intelligence modifier until
the end of your next turn

7

Gain a bonus to all saving throws equal to your Intelligence
modifier until the end of your next turn

8

All enemies within 10 feet of the target are knocked prone

The first time you use this ability,
you suffer no averse effects. If you use this again before you take a
long rest, your Wild Surge occurs on a roll of 5 or less on a d20.
Each time you use this feature again before resting, your Wild Surge
chance increases by 5 (to a maximum of occurring on a roll of 20).

Wild Magic Spells

You hurl a crackling orb of shimmering
lights and terrible noise at your target. Make a ranged spell attack
against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 Psychic damage.
If your attack roll was even, make another spell attack on a randomly
determined target within 50 ft of the primary target. On a hit, that
target takes 1d6 Psychic damage. This spell cannot hit the same
target twice. Continue making secondary attacks until you either roll
an even number or run out of targets.

This spell lets the Wild Mage make
sense of chaos and entropy. It has these main functions:

Visualize how something broken
looked when whole

Pick out individual elements in a
crowded group—for instance, picking out a single set of footprints
from a crowded muddy market square (though not whose footprints they
are; just allowing you to follow them), understanding a single voice
over a crowd's roar (though, again, not who the voice belongs to, or
what they're saying if you don't understand the language), finding a
needle in a haystack, etc

Determining the exact number of
objects in a group of similar objects (gold coins in a dragon's
hoard, soldiers in an approaching army, etc)

You must be able to see or hear the
thing you're trying to make sense of, and you cannot gain specific
information about it beyond what's described above (you can't
determine that a given cup is poisoned, just that the liquid inside
is different than the liquid in a bunch of identical cups). You can't
use this spell to determine a secret message in a pattern (that
implies that there's already order to the pattern in question). The
spell doesn't work on magic items, so you cannot see how to reforge
the Shards of Whatever Magic Sword it Is This Week.

You can get a basic idea of how to put
a broken object back together; Patternweave gives you advantage on
checks to repair broken objects (but not magic items).

Nahal's Reckless Dweomer

1st level Wild Spell

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Special

Components: V, S

Duration: Special

You pull pure magic out of the Weave
and try to shape it into something useful. Pick any spell in your
spellbook. You attempt to cast that spell, but the casting
automatically triggers a Wild Surge. You have advantage on the Wild
Surge table roll.

Regardless of if you use the included
Wild Surge table, the classic 2e Wild Surge table, or some other,
random Wild Surge table, there is ALWAYS a 1 in 100 chance that the
spell functions normally when using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to set
off the Wild Surge. If you're using some giant crazy weird Wild Surge
table other than the original 2e one or the modified one I've
included, roll d100 first, and if you get a 100, the spell functions
normally. If not, do whatever weird voodoo you do when doing Wild
Surge results.

Hornung's Baneful Deflector

2nd level
Wild SpellCasting Time: 1 reaction, when you or a
target within reach are hit by a single target missile attackRange:
Touch; but see belowComponents: V, S, M (A small prism)

Duration: 1 round

You create a shimmering field of force
around the touched creature. Until the start of your next turn, all
single target missile attacks against the shielded creature instead
target a randomly determined creature within 15 feet (including
allies and the shielded creature).

Other Wild Magic spells from 2nd
Edition that I might adapt or whatever

Wildwind (creates a 150 ft long wall
that the caster can move at 60 ft per round. Being hit by the wall
deals 2d6 damage, & any spellcaster hit by the wall automatically
expends their highest level spell slot on a spell, & triggers a
wild surge while doing so. Magic items also activate, & trigger a
wild surge)

3 comments:

What would you think of making Nahal's Reckless Dweomer a cantrip? Its functional usefulness is low (1% chance of achieving desired effect) so I could never see many wizards spending a slot to cast it. If it was at-will, however, all sorts of chaos could ensue.